“Right, I’ll get it.”

Custis and Hauptmann followed him up the narrow stair, discussing with some animation the virtues of a local vineyard, located at the foot of the Drachenfels.

“ Federweisser,they call the new, uncasked wine. ‘Feather-white,’ and it is, too—white, very light—but by God! Three glasses, and you’re under the table.”

“ You’reunder the table, perhaps,” Grey said, laughing. “Speak for yourself.”

“It issomewhat strong,” Hauptmann said. “But you must drink the Federweisserwith the Zwiebelkuchenthat they make there also. That way, you do not suffer—”

Grey grasped the china knob, which turned properly for once, and pushed the door open. And stood paralyzed for an instant, before jerking it shut.

Not quite fast enough, though. Not fast enough to have prevented Custis and Hauptmann from seeing, over his shoulder. Not nearly fast enough to obliterate the image that reached his own eyes and burned directly through them into his brain: the sight of Percy, naked and facedown on the bed, being split like a buttered bun by a blond German officer, also naked, his pale buttocks clenched with effort.

Someone had given a cry of shock; he couldn’t tell whether it was Custis, Hauptmann, or himself. Perhaps it was Percy. Not the other man; he had been too intent on his business, eyes shut and face contorted in the ecstasy of approaching climax.

Weber.The name floated through Grey’s mind like an echo and vanished, leaving it completely blank.

Everything thereafter seemed to happen with remarkable slowness. His thoughts were like clockwork, clicking from one to the next with dispassionate quick logic, while everyone—himself included—seemed to move with a cumbersome sluggishness, turning slowly toward each other and away, the changing expressions of shock, bewilderment, horror flowing like cold treacle over faces that all looked suddenly alike.

You are the senior officer present,said the small, cold voice in his head, taking note of the confusion. You must act.

Things abruptly resumed their normal speed; voices and footsteps were coming from everywhere, attracted by the cry, the slam of the door. Puzzled faces, murmured questions, excited whispers, English and German. He stepped forward and rapped on the door, once, sharply, and the voices behind him hushed abruptly. On the other side of the door there was a deafening silence.

“Get dressed, please,” he said very calmly through the wooden panel. “Present yourselves in the courtyard in five minutes.” He stepped back, looked at the gathering crowd, and picked one of his ensigns’ faces out of the swimming throng.

“Fetch two guards, Mr. Brett. To the courtyard, at the double.”

He became dimly aware of a hand on his arm, and blinking once, turned to Custis.

“I’ll do it,” Custis said, low-voiced. “You needn’t. You mustn’t, Grey. Not your own brother.”

The horrified sympathy in Custis’s eyes was like the prick of a needle, rousing him from numbness.

“No,” he said, his own voice sounding strange. “No, I have to—”

“You mustn’t,” Custis repeated, urgent. He pushed Grey, half-turning him. “Go. For God’s sake, go. It will make things worse if you stay.”

He swallowed, and became aware of all the faces lining the stairway, staring. Of just how much worse the gossip would be, that extra touch of scandal, the frissonof horror, the schadenfreude,as word spread that he had been obliged to arrest his own brother for the crime of sodomy.

“Yes,” he said. He swallowed again, whispered, “Thank you,” and walked away, going down the stairs, counting the wooden treads as they flickered past beneath the toes of his boots, one, two, three, four…

Went on counting his steps, ringing sudden on the bricks of the courtyard, one, two, three, four…muffled as he passed the gate, walking on strewn hay and wet earth, saw Brett and the guards coming toward him, raised a hand in acknowledgment but did not stop, one, two, three, four…

Walked straight down the main street of the village, heedless of mud, of horse dung, of screaming children and barking dogs, eyes fixed on the crag of the Drachenfels, rising in the distance. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven…

Chapter 26

Drinking with Dachshunds

Both men were turned over to the commanding officers of their respective regiments. Hal was at headquarters with Duke Ferdinand; in his absence, Percy was given over to the custody of Ewart Symington; Lieutenant Weber, the Hanoverian, was sent to the Graf von Namtzen’s representative.

Symington, with more tact than Grey would have given him credit for, didn’t mention Percy to him, and had evidently given orders that no one else should, either. The fact that no one spoke to himof Percy didn’t mean that no one spoke of Percy, of course. The army was idle, awaiting a new round of orders from Brunswick. Idleness bred gossip, and Grey found the sudden cessation of conversations, the looks—ranging from sympathy to disgust—and the averted eyes of both men and officers so disquieting that he took to spending the days alone in his tent—he would not return to the inn—though it was by turns stifling or drafty.

Had he been in command, he would have had the men on the move—marching from point A to point B on daily drill, if necessary, but moving. Soldiers took to sloth like pigs to mud, and while such idleness was good for trade, from the points of view of local tavern keepers and prostitutes, it bred vice, disease, disorderliness, and violence among the troops.

But Grey was not in command, and the English troops sat, sunning themselves as the days slowly lengthened toward Midsummer Day. Dicing, drinking, whoring—and gossiping.

With no company save Tom and his own thoughts, which trudged in a weary circle from rage through fear to guilt and back again, Grey was left no social outlet save the occasional game of chess with Symington, who was an indifferent player at best.

Finally, unable to stand the growing sense of being mired hip-deep in something noxious, Grey in desperation asked Symington for leave. Stephan von Namtzen, the Graf von Erdberg, was a personal friend; Grey had been seconded to the Graf’s regiment the year before, as English liaison officer. Von Namtzen’s regiment was with Brunswick’s troops, but the Graf himself had not yet come to the field; presumably he was still recovering at his hunting lodge, a place called Waldesruh. Only a day’s ride from the present English position.

Grey wasn’t sure whether his request for leave had more to do with his need to escape from the morass of silent accusation and speculation that surrounded him, the need of distraction from his own thoughts, or from a basely jealous urge to discover more about Percy’s partner in crime and his fate. But Stephan von Namtzen was a good friend, and above all at the moment, Grey felt the need of a friend.

Symington granted his request without hesitation, and with Tom loyally in tow, he set off for Waldesruh.

Waldesruh was a hunting lodge—which by Hanoverian standards, probably meant that it employed fewer than a hundred servants. The place was surrounded by mile upon mile of brooding forest, and despite the continued weight on his mind and heart, Grey felt a sense of relief as he and Tom emerged at last from the woodland shadows into the sunlight of Waldesruh’s exquisitely manicured grounds.